Wednesday, August 19, 2015

I entered a bunch of stuff in the county fair this year for the first time. The Lovely Daughter entered artwork a couple of years ago and won some big awards, and TMOTH had a bowl in last year.

THIS year, TMOTH put in a bowl and 3 photographs.

My grand total was 29 entries in various categories :) It was fun having a goal to work for this year- and I'll definitely do it again next year. Most of the Home Arts stuff I entered won ribbons of some sort; I had one big ribbon with the shawl I finished just in time:

Groot only won second place :(

All the hard work on the chair paid off: A blue ribbon for my efforts; as with a little pumpkin table-topper and this redwork Santa that I did in about 45 minutes one evening:

The baby shoes were a last-minute project as well:

All in all, I feel well rewarded. And I had a great time at the fair!! photos below:

Saturday, August 08, 2015

I went to karate by myself this morning rather than dragging the karate kid out of bed. It was great! They got a punching dummy, so we did boxing drills!!

I stopped at the local hardware store and got a couple more cans of spray finish so the chair can get done this weekend. I put a coat of shellac (per TMOTH's instructions) on it this afternoon.

I cut into one of our volunteer cantaloupes from the garden. We brought two in yesterday - one because it looked like it might be going bad, and the other because it looked ripe. Well, the one with a bad spot kind of exploded a little (because it WAS bad) so I thought I should go ahead and check the other one. It looks lovely, and it tastes OK - not great, but most definitely edible.

When I was taking the remains of they explodey cantaloupe out to the compost, I noticed butterflies (look like Appalachian brown satyrs to me) loving the rotting fruit.

There was quite the jockeying for best spot - this guy [the baldfaced hornet on the watermelon] chased off all the butterflies at one point!

We still have cicadas, and their shells.

And now, there are burgers on the grill, and a quiet Sunday to look forward to.

I've been following along on Prairie Moon Quilt's Studio Organizing Challenge. Never mind that my "studio" is a scattering of spaces across the house, and some weeks have been better than others.

This week's challenge was to eradicate a pile. This was the one I decided to tackle, before:

This is in the dining room, near the fireplace. I sew on my Featherweight on the dining room table for most piecing, and iron over by the window in the dining room, so it tends to accumulate stuff. The photo doesn't show the extent of the piling-ness; it extends up to the top of the stove insert.

And after:

You can see the rest-of-the-room pile starting on the left, but by golly that corner is clear! One bite at a time is manageable.

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About Me

Working mom, mid-50s. Husband of over 25 years is The Man Of The House. Three kidlets: newly adult Lovely Daughter figuring out life in Florida, teen son at the local community college, and middle school son.